Guardian (Rewritten)
by DivergentIAm
Summary: Willow "Lo", her Twin brother and her best friends are from outside the wall, and work for the Bureau. They don't believe in Genetic Purity and want to save the city of Chicago from Jeanine and their father-David. But as they enter to city they face many obstacles, including their biggest one which is one certain Dauntless Leader.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello everyone, i know i've been MIA for a long time, but I'm back after having revised Guardian and made changes which took the story in the direction i wanted it to go. I will not delete the older version just yet. But today i will be posting the first two chapters of the new story.

I really hope you guys like it and please do not be shy in leaving comments! enjoy!

 **Chapter 1:**

 _"_ _The test results of the latest modifications to the serum have come back. Every single one of the test subjects tested positive, albeit with varying results. We can have this serum ready to be used for this year's aptitude test if you wish Ms. Matthews. We have also finished the final touches on the mind control serum for Dauntless, which puts us ahead of schedule. We can have it sent over to be given by the end of this year's initiation."_

I felt my nails digging into the flesh of my palm, even as my face remained stoic. I had already listened to the footage of the woman presenting her report in an almost robotic voice to the woman behind all the problems occurring in Chicago. Jeanine Matthews was sat listening to the younger woman, her personal secretary, deliver the report of the latest attempt to hunt Divergents. The woman was the definition of pristine, scarily so, with not a single hair out of place, dressed in a modest knee length bright Erudite blue dress. It disgusted me as Jeanine started to looked more and more impressed as her secretary relayed her report.

I chanced a glance at my father, trying to gauge his reaction as he watched the video feed. He was leaning back in his office chair watching with an almost a bored expression on his face. It almost looked as if he thought we were simply wasting his time, which was ridiculous. He was the head of the Bureau and the man in charge of the Chicago experiment, he should be concerned with what was going on in the city. The whole reason for bringing him in for this was to get him to do something before yet another city fell to ruins. We had lost enough lives, and I was done just sitting around and watching it happen.

I was ready for him to give me the green light to stop this as soon as possible. Jeanine Matthews was fast becoming a threat to the city of Chicago, something we hadn't expected. She climbed through the ranks in Erudite quite easily, which wasn't surprising considering her high IQ and efficiency in everything she did. We expected her to be the one to make the next biggest advancements in the city and we weren't disappointed. However, it was her obsession with the divergent and her unwavering belief that they were a threat to the city that would be the experiments downfall. She was ready to use a serum she developed to create her own army of mindless robots to massacre an entire faction to gain full control of the city.

That was something I couldn't allow to happen. The point of my father's experiment was to prove that humanity by itself could 'correct' the evil we all held within us. To make us genetically superior in a way where we would be perfect. It wasn't a belief I shared, but as long as the people of the experiments were taken care of, then I didn't really give a shit what the results of the experiment were. I just couldn't stand by and let yet another city come crumbling down and have hundreds of innocent lives be lost because of my father's idealistic belief that there were only a handful of us that were genetically pure. It was the genetic bullshit my great ancestor once believed to be true that led to, quite literally, the end of the world. Because of him the world we once knew was gone, leaving behind a mostly barren plant that was still in the midst of recovering from the nuclear war.

I wouldn't have even known what Jeanine Matthew's was doing if it wasn't for Forrest, my twin brother. He had brought it to my attention after noticing that that Erudite had taken people that were suspected to be 'Divergent' and used as test subjects for her experiments. Together we decided our father should know about this and make his decision on how it should be dealt with. However, going by his bored expression and his constant need to check his tablet, I was starting to second guess the decision to include him in this.

"Interesting, good work catching this Forrest. Keep monitoring this, and make sure to hand in a detailed report on whatever happens." My father suddenly exclaimed, moving to rise out of his chair. I scrambled to get up, fixing my uniform jacket as I did.

"That's it?" I asked incredulous, moving to intercept my father before he left. He was eager to get out of here, which only made me think he was due to head to the Capital. He had been complaining for months about the lack of funding the Bureau was receiving lately. "Jeanine is trying to hunt down every single divergent to kill them. Something needs to be done before this problem escalates!" I snapped, glaring at my father before pointing to the screens behind us aggressively. "Jeanine is ready to use Dauntless soldiers to massacre Abnegation in order to become the governing faction! That means hundreds of innocent lives at risk of being killed!"

"We cannot interfere with the experiment, we've already done enough to try and get the end results we're looking for. So, far no one has shown signs of being 100% pure, therefore all Jeanine will find are defects." I glowered at him until he let out a huff of annoyance, rolling his eyes as he did so. "Yes, I will admit these so called divergent have shown much more potential than the rest of the city, but they have no value to me if they aren't 100%, which we will not know until we get this year's aptitude results." My father calmly explained to me, infuriating me more than ever. He brushed past me while I stood there stunned. "The last time we even bothered saving one of her victims we ended up picking up another defect." He threw over his shoulder.

My mouth dropped at the mention of Amar, the last divergent we had saved after he was discovered. My father had been ecstatic with the thought that Chicago had finally produced its first 100% genetically pure person. Turned out that Amar had only been 78% genetically pure. My father had sneered and almost had him killed. We barely managed to convince him that testing Amar would be most beneficial to seeing how we could manipulate the genes to reach 100%.

He suddenly stopped and turned around to look at Forrest and I. "By the way I have pending business in the Capital that's going to take some time to settle. I'll be leaving in two days, and I trust I can leave you two in charge while I'm gone." And with that he was striding out of Forrest's office.

"That's it?" Forrest asked looking blankly at the door from where our father had exited through. I watched as his grip on his tablet grew stronger to the point where I swore I heard a crack. I took a stepped towards him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "He's not going to do anything about this?" His voice shook with anger, before throwing his tablet across the room. I didn't even wince when it made impact with the wall and shattered to pieces, instead I moved closer and wrapped an arm around him.

"He doesn't give a shit Forrest." I growled, glaring at the white doors. "He's ready to let Chicago burn like all the other cities… but we're not gonna let him. I'm done with all this bullshit." I snarled, whirling around to face my twin. "Tell Michael to get his ass over here, now."

"Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like this, Willow?" Forrest eyed me wearily, but went ahead and started typing away on my tablet since his was destroyed.

"Because, you wont." I smirked, hands on my hips.

"You're fucking joking, right?" Michael laughed, lazily leaning back in Forrest's computer chair. Michael was a dear friend of ours since we were little, and had earned his way up to work alongside my brother, in one of my father's most prestigious labs. He was with Forrest when he first discovered the discrepancies with my father's genetic purity study. And he was the guy we were trusting with my crazy plan.

When I didn't say anything, he sat up from his chair so fast he almost fell over. "Tell me she's joking." He asked, turning to look at Forrest when I didn't say anything.

"I wish she was." Forrest muttered grimly. He was leaning against his own desk, arms tightly crossed, lips set in a thin line. He'd been like that since the minute I told him about my plan to sneak into Chicago.

"You can't get into the city without being caught on the feeds, and guess what happens when you do get caught on the feeds?" He leaned forward with a sarcastic smile. "Your dad finds out and he kills you and then me." He dropped his smile to glare at me.

"It can be done, no one will tell my dad what we're doing because everyone down at the feeds are the people labeled as defects by our father. They know we're on their side and they'll back us up no matter what. As for the patrol guards, they follow my orders so I'll make sure they have so many ops they barely have time to eat or sleep, then they'll never have time to look to go watch the feeds." I said breezily, moving to stand between them, when Michael continued to glare at me, I rolled my eyes. "I may not have all the details down but that's where you come in Mikey." I smiled brightly.

"Willow, this plan of yours is beyond ridiculous!" Michael hissed leaning forward in the chair to give me one of his stern looks. I just rolled my eyes and slowly made my way over to the ceiling to floor length windows overlooking the bureau. I let out a deep sigh as Michael continued. "The plan isn't even a real plan. All you've got is you go in, destroy the system and get out!"

"Sometimes, the simplest of plans are the best." I answered, sending him a wicked smile over my shoulder. "And there's no goddamn way I'm postponing this. Jeanine is planning something big where people are going to die, and for what?" I hissed, my fist clenching in anger. "My father and the council's belief that there is such a thing as damaged genes?" I scoffed.

"And how exactly are we going to explain your absence?!" Michael exclaimed, eyes flashing. "Your father is expecting you two to run the place while he's gone and he's going to be calling to check in."

"Forrest and I will inform my father we will be going to go to the fringe on a long-term project to work on a way to control the entire group instead of just the children." I answered easily. "He's been going crazy about the slow process of getting those people out of the fringe. He doesn't like not having control over them, so he'll agree without hesitation." I rolled my eyes. It was no secret that the fringe was dangerous and that the people there are "genetically damaged". They were like our own version of the factionless, and they hated me and my patrol squads as much as the factionless hated Dauntless. I really couldn't blame them since all my people did was kill their people and kidnap their children. I did what I could to help whenever I could, but I still couldn't help as much as I wanted to. Without our father stepping down and leaving the Bureau in our hands, I couldn't do more than what I was already doing. But I guess that the first step in doing so would be going to Chicago and breaking the hold our father had on them. Chicago was his last city, and without them, his stupid experiment would be over. Once that happens, the council will pull back completely from funding the bureau as they'll see my father's work as useless. Only then can we use the bureau for real work, work that would be used to help reconstruct our damaged planet.

"Then who's going to be left in charge of the Bureau while he's gone?" Michael asked confused, looking back and forth between Forrest and I- the former unable to meet his best friend's eyes.

"Well…" I sang dragging the word out, while looking at Michael with wide, innocent eyes.

"You've got to be kidding me." Michael muttered under his breath, dropping his head dejectedly. "Of course, you guys always find a way to get me caught right in the dead center of all your plans." He ran his hand over his face before sighing heavily. "When are you scheduled to leave?" He asked, sounding resigned, which made me smile.

"You'll get fathers email by the end of the day." I raised an eyebrow at him, barely resisting the urge to laugh knowing full well that what I was about to say would lead to a tantrum. "Because you are not only in charge of the Bureau while we're gone but you're also to oversee our safe departure as well as a successful mission which will occur in less than two days."

"What only two days?" Michael's voice was oozing with sarcasm. "I would have thought you'd be leaving tonight."

I sighed, looking back out the window. "If we could have gone tonight we would have. Even our father wouldn't have believed we'd have everything ready by tonight. We have to make this look realistic otherwise he's going to get too suspicious and come and check on us. We can't have him sending someone out to the fringe to check on us. God knows how long it's going to take us to find the control room."

"Wait hold on you don't know where it is?" Michael hissed sharply.

"No, I only have a general idea where it is." I answered easily. "Dad made sure to make all records of it confidential, so all we really know is that it's located somewhere below the city. In the old tunnels where the original observation lab was."

"This is insane Willow." Michael muttered, dropping his head into his hands. He looked as stressed as I felt, but something had to be done, or else Chicago might fall just like the other experiments. I wasn't about to repeat my past mistakes of doing nothing.

"It's insane, but we'll get through this." I said confidently. "Now get to work. I have to get started on the patrol plans for the next few months." I ordered as I started out of the room. "We've got 40 hours left before we start this mission, meaning there's no time to waste."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: (2 months later)**

I brushed a stand of hair back from my face, feeling frustrated with the slow progress we've been making in the last two months. The tunnels beneath the city were much bigger and more complex than we had originally thought. We'd found old labs with little to no clue on where the main control room was located. We been able to map out the tunnels we'd already been through to get a rough sketch on the entire structure. The only places we'd avoided were where the destruction of the city above us impacted the tunnels down below. It was a common practice for Factionless to make those places their home, as it was under the city and away from Dauntless patrols.

Yesterday we had stumbled into a room that looked to be the observation room, filled with monitors and computers. Forrest and Jack, another childhood friend -and one of my patrol officers- we had roped into coming with us, had worked for hours to get the system running again without warning the compound it had been tampered with. When we did we managed to find the original structure plans of the tunnels. It had been our biggest achievement and we were hoping that we'd find the control room today and be out of here within the next few days. We were already behind schedule as we wanted to have all this done and over with before this year's initiation began, which had been two days ago.

However, with the progress we were making since morning, I wasn't overly confident we'd find it today. The tunnels were longer than what we had ever expected, and we had already been making our way through them since dawn, and it was somewhere close to midafternoon. It had me in a sour mood, which meant I wasn't speaking much opting to stay silent least I take out my frustrations on my team. But I knew neither Jack nor Forrest had that type of control and would begin voicing their complants soon.

Almost as if he could read my mind, Jack began his whining. "Are you sure we're going the right way? Let me see that goddamn map!" Jack hissed from behind me, reaching around me to grab the digital map that Michael had uploaded from the old computers onto our tablets.

"Michael would have told us if we were going the wrong way." I snapped, slapping his hand away, only for another hand to snatch it away from me. I glared up at my twin brother, who ignored me in favor of scanning the map.

 _"_ _I can't pinpoint your exactly location, I explained this to you before you left the campsite, Willow."_ Michael voice rang out through my earpiece, sounding as if he were talking to a young child. _"You guys are too deep under the city to get a proper GPS signal."_

"See, you could be leading us in circles and he wouldn't even know." Jack said sounding so smug that I was tempted to slap him upside his head. The only problem was that he was a foot taller than me, meaning that I would probably have to jump. I narrowed my eyes at him while contemplating whether it would be worth the slap.

In the end, I settled for crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at him. "I'm still pretty sure I was going the right way." I grumbled, tilting my head as I waited for my brother, Forrest, to decide whether we were on the right track or not.

"We weren't that far off track." Forrest finally decided, still not taking his eyes off the map. "There should be a fork up ahead and from there we have to take the one on the left according to this." He held up the map while looking off in the direction we had to go. "The problem is that we have to go through the exact same location where one of the streets of Chicago collapsed."

"So? What are the chances that someone will walk past and see us?" I asked, dropping my arms and continuing forward. It was too early in the morning for any dauntless soldier to be out patrolling and for any factionless to be wandering around.

 _"_ _It's a part of the factionless sector_." Michael's voice rang out matter-of-fact-ly. I stopped, looking over my shoulder at Forrest and Jack. They both looked as happy about that as I was.

"Meaning that there could be either Factionless who have made themselves comfortable there, or there is the possibility of Dauntless having 24/7 surveillance on the area." Forrest muttered running a hand through his black curls.

"Maybe both." Jack added just as frustrated. "Dauntless keep a close eye on Factionless that band together. Not that I blame them with the shit stirring up with Evelyn." I thought about the woman that was leading the factionless and her thirst for power over the factions whom she believed betrayed her.

"This just keeps getting better and better." Jack muttered putting his hand over his handgun where it was in its holster. "If shit get's ugly we will have no other choice but to shoot our way out of it."

"There's no other way?" Forrest asked not looking at all happy with his suggestion.

"We don't have time to circle back and go the other way." I was the one that spoke up. "We've already wasted the better part of the night and part of the morning. It's early enough that they'll be asleep, which means that Dauntless patrols are light. All we'd have to do is sneak our way through."

Forrest looked torn "Michael, can you see anything on the cameras?" He asked, pressing down on the earpiece in his ear.

 _"_ _I've got a clear view of the street and it's empty, but I don't have a good angle of the hole, for all I know there could be a dozen sleeping factionless."_ Came his immediate response. My brother did not look happy with that response and started to open his mouth to tell us how this was a bad idea but I beat him to it.

"We don't have time for any other plan you may be trying to come up with, so we're going." I decided, nodding for them to keep going. "Just keep your eyes open, I don't want any surprises. If something does happen try to keep it as quiet as possible. I don't want to attract any attention." I ordered.

"Yes, Captain." Jack's answer came out as reflex and my lips twitched in amusement. But I held in a laugh as I noticed the death glare Forrest was sending me. I waited for him to fight me on this but it never came, he moved to follow Jack.

I watched as Jack and Forrest moved forward, then followed after them. The tunnel wasn't very well lit, so they had relied on the special goggles they had taken from the armory. It gave us night vision which made it easy to navigate in dark places and was incredibly useful at the moment. Once we reached the fork, we went left as Forrest had said, but when we were almost at the end of it, we found that the rubble from the collapsed sidewalk partially blocked the way. There was a human sized opening that looked manmade, probably done by a curious factionless, which made it easier for us to get through. The goggles shut off automatically when we climbed out because of the early morning light from the sun streaming in. However, the light only reached of so far, meaning we'd need the googles to continue the rest of the way.

It took a moment to adjust to the light, but once we did, we tried to stick to the shadows. Forrest and Jack easily made their way around the part of the ground that served as almost a ramp leading up to the streets of Chicago. It was as I was making my way around that I noticed several old dirty blankets and ratty pillows that no doubt belonged to the factionless. Among them, there was a dirty box that looked familiar. I looked up to see where the boys were heading, before moving closer to inspect the box.

When I noticed the symbol hiding behind the dirt, I ran my gloved hand over it to clean it. The symbol painted on it looked familiar, a geometric painting of a birds head, an eagle or falcon, but I couldn't remember where I had seen it before.

"Willow!" My head snapped up to see Jack peeking out from where they had turned. "Let's go we found it." I got up and quickly followed after him. The drawing was still bothering me, but we had more important issues to deal with.

I followed Jack about twenty feet until we reached the fork. One led to the entrance of the control room, the other would lead continue on through the rest of the city. I glanced at the other fork as I followed Jack through the one of the left, it was another ten feet before we reached Forrest who was busy unscrewing the panel to get to the main circuit. I didn't hesitate to step up to Jack to begin unloading the heavy set laptop he was carrying in his backpack. It was what Forrest would use get us into the control room.

"What if we can't hack into it? What if the entire system sends an alert to your father and we set it off?" Jack asked as I started getting the wires set up for Forrest to hook up.

"Father knew that because the city of Chicago was set up to be excluded from the rest of civilization, that this room would never be accessed." Forrest began explain as he finally pulled apart the main panel. "So the main circuit system that keeps this room locked is much less sophisticated than the network he set up to control it back from base. It's the reason we were able to hack into the computer system so easily yesterday without alerting the Bureau we had done so."

"Why do you think we didn't just break into his lab and came out here instead?" I asked amused, handing the laptop over to my brother.

"I just thought you didn't want to get caught." Jack smiled cheekily at me, causing me to laugh. Afterward, we set back to watch him work, but he had barely just hooked up the laptop when trouble came.

 _"_ _We have a problem."_ Michael said urgently, making me stand up straight and reaching for the gun at my holster, my eyes scanning the way we came.

"What's wrong?" I asked, signaling Forrest to keep working.

 _"_ _We have Factionless activity a couple blocks away from you, Dauntless soldiers have been alerted by Candor and they're dispatching them to deal with it."_ He said gravely, the sound of his tapping away on his keyboards echoing in our ears.

"So what? They're blocks away, they won't come near us." Jack sounded confused as to why Michael was upset.

 _"_ _The factionless got some wicked looking weapons, and I saw some handmade bombs."_

"There's gonna be war." I stated grimly, reaching up to pull at my pony tail. "Just keep an eye on it Michael, if they start coming too close let us know." I ordered, stepping closer to examine Forrest's progress.

 _"_ _It's not looking good, Lo."_ Michael sounded upset. _"They're setting a perimeter to close off any escape from the factionless and you're close enough to that entrance that if the factionless go back home, there's potential you'll run into them. There's also a chance of them leading Dauntless back to you."_

"Well what are we supposed to do then?" Jack snapped.

 _"_ _I suggest you pull back far enough that you can wait them out. We can't risk you guys getting caught by Dauntless."_ Jack and Forrest both looked over to me, waiting for me to decide what to do.

I smoothed a rough hand over my head, trying to decide what to do. It was a fifty percent chance that things could go wrong. Even if we did pull back and the factionless come back, we'd have to wait until we got another clear shot to get back here. We'd already wasted enough time, and the longer we waited the more time we gave Jeanine to carry out her plans. We'd have to come back to deal with this tomorrow, and god knows how tomorrow will go. There were too many scenarios of how things could go. Even if we did get a chance to destroy the program today or tomorrow, we still had to find a way to get into Chicago and stop Jeanine. Of course it be easier to do without father interfering, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't send a tactical team to do things manually. But I still had to think about my team and what was good for them. It wouldn't do us good to get caught in the middle of this war, because then there would be nobody to save Chicago from David or Jeanine. I sighed and turned to tell them so when suddenly a loud explosion sounded. The force of it shook the walls and knocked us off our feet.

I got on one knee, raising my hands to protect my head from the debris falling down on us. Looking back the way we came, and seeing the amount of debris falling down, I knew that there was no way we could stay and try our luck. I turned and shouted at Forrest. "Pack it up!" Once the shaking stopped, I moved towards them to help shove everything back into Jack's pack.

My biggest worry was the small opening we came through. If the explosion had closed it we would have to go through the other fork in the tunnel to circle back to the exit. Knowing this, I rushed the boys ahead of me, while I started pulling the panel back together. We couldn't leave it hanging open or it would catch someone's unwanted attention.

Once I was satisfied with it, I ran back to the collapsed room, noticing more rubble littering the floors. Some large pieces of concrete had been misplaced in the already tight space that they had crawled through. I looked up at the city, the sun already high in the sky, as Forrest and Jack continued moving a couple rocks to make more room.

"Let's go Willow." Jack called, motioning for me to go first. I sent him a dark look. I always stayed behind to make sure the entire team was accounted for. I had never left a man behind no matter how dangerous shit got, which got me into more trouble than I cared to admit.

"You know the drill soldier, squad leader goes last." My tone broke no argument, and Forrest grabbed Jack by the backpack and shoved him to get moving, already knowing my stubborn ass wouldn't go until they were cleared. When I heard shouting coming from somewhere close, I pulled my gun out. I stood ready to shoot while, Forrest waited for Jack to pass through. "Willow."

"Move, Forrest." I ordered, not looking back at him. "Don't make me shoot you to get your ass moving." I kicked my own pack at him. I heard his aggravated sigh, but he moved none the less. It took no more than 2 minutes for him to clear the small opening, but it felt like hours as I kept expecting a dauntless soldier to pop up.

"Clear!" I backed up towards the entrance, putting my gun in its holster. I stepped up, ready to start crawling, when another explosion shook the ground. I yelped loudly as I lost my balance and tumbled back, large chunks of rubble rolling down after me. As I rolled, I heard a large crash, followed by large cloud of dust rising up to meet me. I let out a half cough half grunt as I landed hard on the floor, feeling a sharp pain in my shoulder from where it connected with a large chunk of rock.

Everything was quiet for a few seconds, before I heard shouting. "Willow!" It was both Jack and my brother, repeatedly yelling my name. It made my heart skip a beat when I realized that I could only hear them through the earpiece that was still somehow attached to my ear. I looked up only to see the small opening was now completely sealed and there was no way I'd be able to move all the heavy rocks out of the way. I let out a slow breath, trying to force myself to get up and try to find a way out but everything hurt, especially my shoulder.

 _"_ _What the hell is going on?!"_ Michael demanded over the feed. _"The building that blew up just collapsed. Dauntless soldiers just barely made it out, and now they're trying to get all the factionless they can get their hands on."_

 _"_ _I don't know, the explosion closed off our only way to Willow and she's not answering."_

 _"_ _Fucking hell Willow, answer me!"_

"I'm fine." I croaked, trying to roll over onto my stomach to push myself back up onto my feet. I gasped as I felt the burning pain in my shoulder. "I hurt my shoulder but it doesn't feel as if I dislocated it or broke something." I reported, forcing myself onto my feet. "Fuck!" I shouted feeling the burning pain down the length of my arm.

 _"_ _Willow listen to me you need to go the other way. Jack and I will circle back to get to you."_ I looked over my shoulder only to cry out in despair when I saw that the rest of the sidewalk had collapse to block the way to the control room and the rest of the tunnel.

"It's blocked too!" I shouted, looking up at what used to be the ramp leading up to the street. It was half collapsed, but still looked stable enough to climb. "I have to go up into the city."

 _"_ _Like hell!"_ My twin cursed, sounding much more distressed than I've ever heard him.

"Michael is it clear?" I asked ignoring my twin brother's cursing and stumbled over to start the climb. I mentally winced as I calculated how painful the climb would be.

 _"_ _For now."_ He answered, typing away. _"You need to head east; the majority of the soldiers are heading west to go after the group of factionless behind the explosion."_

"Great. You need to get me to Hancock building, that's where we'll meet up." I decided as I started the climb.

 _"_ _Are you sure?"_ Jack asked this time. Clearly Forrest wasn't taking this well. We were never supposed to head out into the city. It was too dangerous. We were dressed in head to toe black so we'd probably pass off as Dauntless soldiers, but someone watching the video feeds would no doubt notice that we were running away from the fight instead of towards it. Even with Michael's skill he wouldn't be able to distort every single camera we were caught on.

"Yes, the choosing ceremony was two days ago, it's empty now." I used my good arm to begin the climb, clenching my teeth as I jostled my bad one. "Just make sure you get there without problems. Michael's gonna have his hands full with me." After that I didn't speak, ignoring whatever else they were saying as I concentrated on not passing out from the pain. By the time I reached the top, I was breathing and sweating heavily. I pulled myself up with what little strength I had left and rolled onto my back to rest for a minute.

 _"_ _Come on Willow, you need to get moving."_ Michael ordered, making me realize that I had taken more than a minute.

"I know." I huffed, swallowing tightly, before shoving to my feet with a wince. "Where to?" I asked looking around the empty street.

 _"_ _Go left until you reach the second building on your right. Go into the alley between it and the third building."_ I followed his instructions, jogging lightly while clutching my shoulder. I quietly followed the directions he gave me for the next few minutes, and was in the process of jogging down a narrow alley when more trouble found me. _"Stop, pull back now!"_ I skidded to a stop, hearing running footsteps heading my way along with some shouting.

"Give it up, you've got nowhere to go!" A deep voice shouted, making me shiver. I dove behind a large dirty trash can, praying to God they wouldn't see me.

"How many?" I questioned quietly, pressing myself against the side of the building.

 _"_ _It's a factionless man and Eric Coulter!"_ He hissed in my ear.

 _"_ _Dammit Lo, get the hell out of there now!"_ Forrest snarled into my ear, sounding even more scared and pissed off than before. Not that I blame him, because if it really was Eric Coulter I was in a shit load of trouble. As the youngest Dauntless leader in all of history, Coulter proved himself to be even more ruthless than Max, the main leader of Dauntless.

Ignoring both of them, I peeked out slightly catching sight of a large man in mismatched clothes stopping in the middle of the alley. He pulled something out of his pocket, but I couldn't really get a good look at it. It wasn't until I watched as he lit it on fire that I realized what it was. I quickly hid myself again when he tossed it back the way he had come from.

I gasped as I heard and felt the small explosion. It was nothing like the one that had sealed off my only way of escape, but it was enough to make me doubt Eric survived it. But when I peeked out again I saw the man's face twist into a cruel smile as he pulled a wicked looking blade from his belt. Eric must either be alive or he was going back to carve a message to leave for Dauntless. _"This is your chance, while they're distracted. About 6 feet in the opposite direction there's another alley that leads to the main street."_ Michael directed.

It took my body a minute to follow my command to move, but I managed it. Moving forward I looked back to where the man was now stalking towards the dauntless man on the floor. I ignored them and started to head in the direction Michael had told me.

But then I heard a pained filled groan leave the man on the floor and I just knew what the Factionless man was going to do. I know Michael said it was Eric Coulter, the youngest of the Dauntless leaders, and by far the cruelest, but the thought of letting him be gutted by this man made me sick.

I knew from the reports that Jeanine had tried to recruit him in her plan to take over the factions, but his loyalty to his faction was unbreakable. That and he was smart and calculating enough to know that there was no way Jeanine would succeed. Especially not with the factionless attacking the city. It was a known fact that the faction they hated more than Dauntless was Erudite.

 _"_ _Willow, come on get going!"_ Michael snapped, but still I hesitated. I know it was stupid, but couldn't just let him die, not like this.

"Damn it all to hell!" I hissed angrily, while reaching for my gun. "Stop!" I called out as I took aim, taking long sure steps to get closer to them. The man froze a couple feet from Eric who was now struggling to get back up. He was obviously still too dazed by the explosion to manage it though.

Not really worried about him, I focused on the factionless man who was slowly turning around to face me. He was big, in a muscularly way, with a balding head and a scar running down the side of his face. He sneered at me, when he finally got a good look at me, and I could only imagine what he was thinking. I was barely 5'2, which often made my opponents underestimate me. But I was trained for combat, and although I was small, I was pure perfectly toned muscles, and I was anything but weak. It also helped that I had a nice gun and was a pretty good shot.

 _"_ _What the fuck are you doing?!"_ Forrest shouted along with Jack and Michael echoing his sentiments. I knew what I was doing was stupid but I just couldn't stand here and let that man die, no matter how much of a dipshit he was. So I ignored them and continued forward towards the factionless man.

"Well, look-y here." He his voice rumbled deeply. "If it ain't a dauntless little girl playing hero."

"You know the consequences of killing a faction leader." I said ignoring his taunt. "So step away before you do something stupid."

"Or what? You gonna shoot me?" he laughed heartily which only served to piss me off. So I took off the safety and didn't hesitate to shoot him.


End file.
